Don’t expect all flood mitigation work to be completed by spring
Posted Feb 10, 2014 2:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The city is working to better communicate with Calgary communities as flood recovery efforts continue, months after June’s disaster.
A city flood recovery website shows where mitigation work is underway across the city including places along Elbow River like at Home Road and Memorial Drive.
Out of 185 infrastructure projects, the city’s Flood Recovery Operations Centre reports about half of the projects are completed or being worked on.
An update from city officials shows there are many projects that won’t be done by spring and in some cases will take years to complete.
Total flood recovery spending approved by council is so far is about $316-million for both 2013 and 2014.
Long term costs are estimated to be up to $445-million.
Gord Stewart, Director of the city’s Flood Recovery Operations Centre, said while crews are working as hard as possible, the city is increasing its effort to communicate with community members.
Stewart said the city is further streamlining the permit process for home and business owners needing to mitigate.
Fire Chief Bruce Burrell warned against those who may cry wolf as the spring melt gets underway but also said Calgarians also need to remain diligent against disaster.
“Part of it is individual protection, individual preparedness, and individual resiliency. For property owners, make your property flood proof, if you can,” he said.
Burrell said one thing they learned that takes up valuable resources in the case of a flood, are the number of people who refuse to evacuate when an order is called.
In case of another flood, Twyla Hutchinson, an engineer with Water Resources, said the city department is working right now to develop newer computer models to help with emergency response.
Those models will be in place in 2014 with hopes they will be operational by May.
